Mussolini

In 1945, disguised in German greatcoat and helmet, Mussolini attempted to escape from the advancing Allied armies.Unfortunately for him, the convoy of which he was part was stopped by partisans and his features, made so familiar by Fascist propaganda, gave him away.Within 24 hours he was executed by his captors, joining those he sent early to their graves as an outcome of his tyranny, at least one million people.He was one of the tyrant-killers who so scarred interwar Europe, but we cannot properly understand him or his regime by any simple equation with Hitler or Stalin.Like them, his life began modestly in the provinces; unlike them, he maintained a traditonal male family life, including both wife and mistresses, and sought in his way to be an intellectual.He was cruel (though not the cruellest); his racism existed, but never without the consistency and vigor that would have made him a good recruit for the SS.He sought an empire; but, in the most part, his was of the old-fashioned, c